About this Release

“It was a great pleasure for me to confront the challenge of Viana de Mota's pianistic virtuosity in this album. My own Portuguese origins helped me to understand and to interpret the many different and complex emotions expressed in these piano compositions influenced by the German tradition and the discovery of Portuguese folk music.” — João Costa Ferreira

VIANNA DA MOTTA, José (1868-1948)

PIANO WORKS

João Costa Ferreira, piano

Among the first works composed in Berlin by the young José Viana da Mota were the Fantasiestück, Op. 2, brimming with Schumannesque cantabile, and the more fiery, Liszt-inspired Zwei Klavierstücke nachA. Böcklin. Written when the composer had established himself as one of the great virtuoso pianists of the Liszt school, the RapsódiasPortuguesas draw upon native fado tunes, religious and love songs and children’s round dances to create a vivid and idealised mosaic of Portuguese national identity.

The Artist

Portuguese pianist João Costa Ferreira (b. 1986) has performed in several concert halls in Europe. He performs frequently for the Portuguese state classical music radio station RDP-Antena 2. He holds the prestigious Diplôme Supérieur d’Exécution of the École Normale de Musique de Paris-Alfred Cortot. João Costa Ferreira is also a researcher; he graduated with a master in music and musicology from the Paris-Sorbonne University and has started a doctoral programme there with a scholarship from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to study the composition, technique and interpretation of José Viana da Mota’s piano works.

The Composer

The Portuguese pianist and composer José Vianna da Motta studied the piano and composition in Berlin, and in Frankfurt with Hans von Bülow. He attended Liszt’s final classes in Weimar and his close association with the music of Liszt continued after the latter’s death in 1886. One of the leading pianists of his time, he finally returned to Portugal in 1917, becoming director of the Lisbon Conservatory in 1919 and doing much to establish there a broader system of musical and cultural education.

Piano Music

The influence of Liszt is apparent in Vianna da Motta’s compositions for piano, where Portuguese elements have an increasing part to play.

Grand Piano has gained a reputation for producing high quality recordings of rare keyboard gems. Dedicated to the exploration of undiscovered piano repertoire, the label specialises in complete cycles of piano works by many lesser-known composers, whose output might otherwise have remained unknown and unrecorded.